Trading Journals

The Australian Central Bank released a statement on Tuesday that it will be maintaining its cash rates at 1.5%, a decision that is expected among financial market players as the central bank is still in the middle of assessing the effects of its previous cash rate cuts in May and August.

The RBA made this particular statement during its policy meeting which is held every month. Analysts are expected little if not completely no change for the RBA during the week.

Japan’s services sector activity rose at a sluggish pace in May than the previous month given the expansion of new orders at the slowest pace since September 2016, based on the private survey on Tuesday. This implies that the economy has lost its momentum in the second quarter.

However, the business confidence increased to the highest for four months in April as the companies launch new products to give way for the expected increases in the future demand.

The Markit/Nikkei Japan Services Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) declined on a seasonally adjusted basis to 51.0 in May from 52.5 in April.

Moreover, there is a rising concern on the lesser demand conditions as new sales rising but at a subdued rate in 20 months, according to an economist at IHS Markit, Joe Hayes, who gathers the survey.

To sustain the business activity, firms started to clear the “backlogs of work”. High business activities dropped for the first time in the first five months of the year.

The composite PMI, which includes both manufacturing and services, decreased to 51.7 from 53.1 in April.

Japanese manufacturing activity rose in May at the slowest rate in seven months due to cooled down new orders based on the revised survey on Friday. This implies lesser domestic demand of the country. Hence, the economy weakened in the first quarter that ends the growth for eight consecutive quarters, which was the longest steady growth since the 1980s bubble economy.

Since the end of the first quarter, the negative outcome on factory data induced uncertainty on the rate of recovery by the economy.

The Swiss National Bank announced the decision to maintain an ultra-loose monetary policy on Thursday and analysts expectations matched from the survey by Reuters giving a unanimous answer.

They reiterated the fragility or exchange rates after the strengthening of the Swiss franc in the past few weeks and began low this year.

At the same time, Chairman Thomas Jordan said that it would be too early to raise rates in Switzerland amid low inflation.

Another issue is the political uncertainty in Italy which will affect the eurozone in the future and it is important for the central bank to be heedful in this situation, according to an analyst.
Forty experts expect the SNB to maintain the target range to be 1.25 percent to minus 0.25 percent in three months on the offered rate of London Interbank, which has been the ongoing target for the past three-and-a-half years.

Also, they expect a negative interest rate of 0.75 percent deposits to be sustained where the commercial bank held a certain value as one of the important tools used by the bank.

Changes in the LIBOR target range is anticipated to happen soonest at the end of the year based on the UBS, while the median consensus deems to set at the end of next year.

Analyst of Credit Suisse initially thought the central bank to raise their rates as early as 2019 based on the economic strength of Switzerland, with a forecast growth of 2.2 percent this year.

The Global Head of Investment Strategy & Research at Credit Suisse Group AG, Nannette Hechler-Fayd’herbe said, “Our base case scenario is where the ECB is considering a first interest rate increase themselves by mid-2019, and the SNB could move a quarter before.” Connoting the reaffirmation of central bank’s decision. However, she added that these two would move together as they are ‘economically interlinked’.

Her expectation is a gradual increase of rates until it reached around 1.20 against the euro in a year.